Whenever we go to a small or any airport. We look and look for GA traffic. However we see very little. Yeah I know gas prices, supposed high insurance costs. It is about $6000 - $8000 or more to get a private pilot license. And then what can you do? Fly around and look at the ground? In New Mexico it all looks alike. Now I suppose you could fly to New Mexican Golf courses. Oh yeah you could go to Conchas lake and......well that only works if you have someone to pick you up at  the airport. However the Golf course is across the street from the strip so you catch a break on that one. But what will it cost to get there. A Cessna 172 rental goes from $75/hr(Sierra Aviation Santa Fe) - $119/hr and if you go for the glass cockpit and your not in the elite economic category you may be able to get 30 min in the air if you don't have to hold for some student being taught to fly 2  mile wide patterns. I digress. So lets pull out the old E-6B(If you don't know what that is sign up for our free ground school) and do some cost analysis on a short flight to Conchas lake. DoubleEagle II - Conchas Lake 128.7nm(we get this from Golden Eagle Flight Prep, Free check it out). Now if you go direct from DEII there is a problem. The Sandias. I would suggest passing to the north. But for the sake of cost we will use direct. The 172 has 36 usable gallons of fuel @ $3.99/gal which will cost you $143.64(Bode Aviation surprise, surprise as Jim Neighbors used to say). But if you rent from these guys the fuel is factored into the rental cost. So 128.7nm @ 115kts/hr will give you about 67 min. (one way). Round trip 2hrs 14min. So at the low rental rate of $75/hr you will have a rental cost of $167.50 for the trip!(you figure the cost at $140). I've got a pal and we just drove from Albuquerque to Conchas lake then to Tucumcari and back to Albuquerque in a Dodge Hemi on one tank of gas. So the numbers tell us that it makes no economic sense to make the flight(unless your like me, an economic idiot who wants to fly). Which is why when you go to these airports you see very little to no GA traffic. Of course there are people who save their cash all week or month and fly on the weekend. So what can we do about this? Three letters LSA. We can lower the cost. Remember, America will need GA and its pilots. Remember how a bunch of small airplanes after Dec 7, 1941 flown by GA pilots patrolled the coast of America looking for German Subs, and found them. Today they are the Civil Air Patrol. Here, again because of short sited administrators who think they are the government have dismissed a patriotic bunch of VOLUNTEERS(your southern border security fears can be assuaged for NO personnel costs. However the northern border was where we actually caught the last terrorists). So next time we will show you how to get that American boy and girl into General Aviation for less than $2000.